ISO/IEC standardization of EPUB 3.3 and EPUB Accessibility 1.1

Dear colleagues,

I strongly believe that ISO/IEC standardization

of EPUB 3.3 and EPUB Accessibility 1.1 is a must.

This mail explains why.

The Japanese government has always used JIS
standards as a basis. As far as I know, they
have never used forum specifications as a
basis. Both the Japanese Ministry of
Internal Affairs and Communications and the
Japanese Digital Agency use JIS X
8341-3:2016, which is equivalent to ISO/IEC
40500:2012 and WCAG 2.0. They do not use
WCAG 2.1 as a basis, although it is a W3C
Recommendation.

The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs
and Communications published a guideline
document, "Public Website Operation
Guidelines for Everyone" in 2016. It uses
JIS X 8341-3:2016 as a basis. It has not
been revised after the publication of WCAG
2.1.

The Japanese Digital Agency published a
tutorial document, "Introduction to Web
Accessibility" in December 2022. It does
mention WCAG 2.1 and 2.2. But it also states
that WCAG 2.1 is not yet common in Japan as
JIS X 8341-3 has not been updated. The
authors of this tutorial document clearly
understand that WCAG 2.1 has many advantages
over 2.0, but they still have to use JIS X
8341-3:2016 as a basis.

Although Japan is just one country, I would
not be surprised if other countries use
ISO/IEC standards but do not use forum
specifications. About this topic,
Prof. Ishikawa, an ex-vice-chair of the
Committee on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD) of the United Nations,
spoke with experts on international
laws. All experts agree that ISO or IEC
standards are international standards. Some
do not think ITU recommendations are
international standards. Few consider IEEE
or W3C specifications as international
standards.

Now, EPUB Accessibility 1.0 is an ISO/IEC
standard as well as a JIS standard. If
ISO/IEC standardization of EPUB
Accessibility 1.1 does not happen, different
parts of the world are likely to use different
versions of EPUB Accessibility. I strongly
want to avoid such fragmentation.

Regards,

Project Professor at Keio University
Chair of the Technical Committee of the Japan DAISY Consortium
MURATA Makoto (Ph. D. in Engineering)